After the success of OMG 2, Akshay Kumar is making a return to the big screen, this time in a full-fledged role with the Tinu Suresh Desai-directed Mission Raniganj. The actor plays the part of Jaswant Singh Gill and the film is all set to release on Friday, October 6. The advance bookings for Mission Raniganj opened on Wednesday and the response has been lukewarm, to say the least.
As of Thursday 1:30 PM, Mission Raniganj sold only 2000 tickets across the three national chains - PVR, Inox, and Cinepolis - and the final advance is expected to be under the 10,000 mark given the slow movement in pace. The pace of Mission Raniganj can only be compared to another Akshay Kumar film, Selfiee, which sold 8,800 tickets for the opening day and opened at Rs. 2.55 crores. Other Akshay Kumar films like Raksha Bandhan, Samrat Prithviraj, Bachchan Panday among others had sold tickets in the range of 30,000 to 40,000 across the three chains.
Mission Raniganj is releasing in a market scenario that's a lot better than Selfiee, but the movement in advance booking indicates a slow start at the box office. An under Rs. 5 crore start seems to be on the cards for Mission Raniganj and the movie will need strong word of mouth to hold over the weekend.
The hope now is on some redemption with spot bookings throughout the day and a positive word of mouth to get the footfalls.
